Glebe House team welcomes new chef and business partner

David Knapman has joined Glebe House, the farm-to-table restaurant and 15-acre smallholding with guesthouse set in the hills of East Devon, as head chef and business partner. 

The venue has been owned by Hugo and Olive Guest since 2021. Its food ethos is centred around craft cooking – the art of creating base foods that are often taken for granted. Most of what is eaten is made onsite using ingredients either grown or raised on the land or sourced from the immediate surrounding area. 

With Knapman now leading the kitchen, the trio are combining warm hospitality with new field-to-fork menus. The chef brings a background that spans some of the world's most respected restaurants, having worked as senior sous at Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck, and chef-pâtissier at the three Michelin-starred Maison Lameloise in Burgundy.

The Glebe House experience

Daily menus are shaped by the organic kitchen garden, with produce preserved through pickling, fermenting or drying. Yoghurt, marmalade, bacon and charcuterie are all made in-house and available in the on-site larder for guests to take home. Bread is also baked daily. 

Autumn menu highlights include croustade with smoked trout and watercress, Glebe salumi and pickles, or porridge bread and cultured butter to start; sea bass crudo with cucumber and Dorset wasabi, mushroom tagliatelle with hen of the woods and girolles, or Herdwick hogget with grilled pepper and preserved tomato for mains; and West Country cheeses, salted caramel tart with yoghurt ice cream and poached pear or brown butter cake for dessert. 

Also launching at Glebe House this autumn are two new handcrafted guest cabins and a woodland sauna. 

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